Crypto-sources: how do I keep informed about all things crypto?

After my two previous articles about cryptocurrencies and blockchains (here and here), few people asked what sources I use to keep myself informed about this space. So I decided to lay down, also for the sake of Forgetful-Future-Me, the list of channels/influencers I follow and for what purposes.

As you might have noticed by now, I’m quite blue (from Insights Discovery personality grid perspective), which means I need some structure before I explain things. So let’s first make a 2x2 grid, to frame the conversation in a logical way.

From a content type perspective, two things are important in the crypto space:

1. Fundamental analysis: which talks about the broader context of crypto markets (like interest rates, inflation, stock market, commodity prices, crypto regulations, venture funding in crypto, institutional adoption etc) as well as the strategic health of a certain cryptoasset (technical roadmap, new partnerships, tokenomics, recent exploits – yes!, who’s the team and investors behind it etc). Let’s say these are the soft skills of a crypto-sapiens
2. Technical analysis: looks at charts, numbers, indicators, variations, buy/sell zones and what not. It’s the science of knowing as much as possible about the supply, the demand and the price of a certain cryptoasset by following price action (no different than in stock markets) and on-chain data (only available in crypto space, virtue of the blockchain technology). These are of course the hard skills of our crypto-sapiens

Knowing a bit of both worlds (soft and hard skills) is important for anyone wanting to understand this new, disruptive space thoroughly. But, in the end, everyone will get attracted by one or the other, based on their personality and objectives. My personal opinion: Fundamental analysis makes good investors, technical analysis makes good traders. I’m definitely not in the latter category, so I keep my hopes for the former.

The other dimension of the table is the source of information I used. In order to KISS it, I chose to focus on very few channels and people (therefore discounting books, newsletters, conferences etc.).

My 2x2 metric looks like this:

My top 10 crypto-sources: explained

1. Unchained podcasts: when I did my first research on best learning sources in crypto, this podcast came in most tops. It’s hosted by Laura Shin, a very serious and thorough journalist (ex-Forbes) whom I listen everytime I take a long walk. She invites the best of the best in crypto, from the likes of Michael Saylor, Mark Cuban, Willy Woo, US governors, CEOs of crypto startups, prominent lawyers, NFT artists etc.
2. Cointelegraph: I read this online news outlet every day, when I wake up or during my lunch break. They post new articles frequently (even during weekend) and they talk about everything from China mining regulations to what Elon Musk had for breakfast (which influenced the crypto market that day). Think of Huffington Post for a good analogy. While I find them a bit too bullish/biased on crypto, I get my share of newly updates very effectively from here. They also publish a nice price analysis every few days, written by Rakesh Uphadhyay
3. Coindesk: this is my second crypto-only news outlet I read everyday, together with Cointelegraph. They publish less frequently (almost nothing over weekend), but their articles are longer and more thorough, in my opinion. Also, the tone is a bit more balanced I would say. On that note, I also read Wall Street Journal and Financial Times to keep myself anchored in reality: not everyone loves crypto and not everything in crypto is rosy either ??.
4. Lyn Alden: she is an investor with excellent macroeconomy foundations, who covers not only crypto, but also traditional stocks, commodities, bonds etc. From her I’m learning loads about why inflation is important to crypto, how investors value the crypto space, what might be the next bull/bear cycle about (e.g. energy). You can find several interviews with her on Youtube (be aware of fakes though!) and she sends out also a free newsletter.
5. Raoul Pal: is also an investor but takes more of a business/technology strategic approach. He inspired me with meta-concepts like the network effect of blockchain platforms (and how is that used to value investment potential of a project) or the S-curve in technology adoption (which shows how early we are with crypto/blockchain currently). I mostly follow him on Twitter, but he also has some nice interviews on Youtube, just be sure they are not fake. ?
6. Whaletank: is a community of traders who share signals on interesting cryptocurrencies to buy/sell, at what levels and why (i.e. which indicators they used to sustain their strategy). WhaleTank is one of many crypto signal group that popped up in the past years, and they have both a free Telegram channel as well as a paid one. I’d suggest you start with the free one, see the type of signals & discussions happening there and decide later on any upgrade. I never follow blindly anyone’s signal and I highly recommend you do the same.
7. Tradingview: Is THE place to go for charting cryptocurrency pairs, get ideas of other members’ trading strategies for the respective pairs and plug in your automated trading bots (for advanced users). if you pay a little attention, most charts presented in articles, Twitter chats or Discord/Telegram channels would have Tradingview as source. You can start with a free license and take it from there. Be sure to read the “ideas” section, too.
8. Santiment: I like Santiment because it’s full of analysts who dissect on-chain and off-chain data, day and night (and they publish articles and newsletters on the platform ??). Their competitive advantage is that they include social media data (thus the name: Santiment) in the technical analyses they run. Their assumption is that price action is influenced both by hard factors (like on-chain metrics) and soft factors (like number of Twitter chats, what media says about a certain coin). I have the paid subscription, but I’d recommend you start with the free one and decide for yourself on the value add.
9. Willy Woo: When you say “Bitcoin data” you cannot ignore Willy Woo, one of the best known Bitcoin analysts, together with PlanB. Over time, Willy developed proprietary on-chain metrics for Bitcoin, in partnership with data provider Glassnode. He looks at things like distribution of coins per type of address (big whales, small retail investors), exchange inflows/outflows, profitability of coins since last transaction, age of coins held etc. I follow him on Twitter, Youtube, media outlets, podcasts and I subscribed to his paid newsletter The Bitcoin Forecast. I’m just in love with this guy: he’s relaxed, funny, uncomplicated (in explanations), strategic (in thinking) and (mostly) right.
10. Michael van de Poppe: is my favourite analyst/trader for price action strategy (i.e. how price is moving in between different support and resistance zones). His biggest message is: wait until prices revisit lower support levels (cause they mostly will) and do not rush into buying out of FOMO (i.e. when price is growing already exponentially). I watch his Youtube videos almost every evening (*), together with my dinner ??.

(*) I also watch on a regular basis the videos of Young & Investing, Lark Davis and the podcast What Bitcoin Did (but more for fundamental analysis and ideas on new/emerging crypto projects).

With that I end my third article about the cryptocurrency and blockchain world, which I’m discovering since mid last year. Going forward, I’ll aim to deep dive into some crypto sub-segments / clusters like:

• Blockchain platforms (providing technical infrastructure for descentralized transactions)
• Oracles (providing the underlying data for these descentralized transactions)
• DeFi (descentralized finance like yield farming, staking, liquidity provision, etc.)
• NFTs (non-fungible/unique tokens like pieces of art, football/baseball tickets, music etc.)
• Community tokens (used to remunerate freelancers, artists, users of products/services)